China gets a free pass

EXAMINER EDITORIAL WRITER

Published 4:00 am, Monday, January 29, 1996

1996-01-29 04:00:00 PDT CHINA; UNITED STATES -- ITEM: China warns the United States that it has completed plans for a limited missile attack on Taiwan that could be activated if Lee Teng-hui is elected in the island nation's first democratic presidential election.

ITEM: For "national security" reasons, China announces that it will censor financial information coming into the country.

ITEM: Nearly one year after China pledged to crack down on economic piracy of American videotapes, music CDs and computer software, more pirate manufacturing plants are operating than before the agreement, creating up to a $1 billion ammual loss for American companies.

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ITEM: China's governance of Tibet continues to be an exercise in terror and repression. In the latest outrage, China has trampled on religious rights by installing its own candidate as Panchen Lama, the second holiest post in Tibetan Buddhism.

ITEM: China has announced that after it takes control of Hong Kong in July 1997, it will kick out democratically elected members of the local Legislative Council, replacing them with Beijing loyalists.

In short, the news is not heartening. Hong Kong, Tibet and Taiwan - all lands to which China stakes claim - have the most to lose. The United States, because of its power and leadership, has the greatest responsibility.

So far, however, the United States ignores atrocities in Tibet, dismisses the threat to Taiwan and watches with indifference the sword of Damocles hanging over Hong Kong. Only threats to our own financial interests move us.

U.S. Trade RepresentativeMickey Kantor has revived a threat to impose $1 billion of trade sanctions if China doesn't quickly act to stamp out its copyright pirates. Even this is only a hand slap - China's trade surplus with the United States this year is expected to climb near $50 billion.

Geopolitical ironies abound.

China desperately wants admission to the world trade club known as WTO, but the United States will exercise its blackball unless the Chinese show they can play by the rules.

For two decades, the United States has rigorously pursued a "one-China" policy - to mainland China's benefit - yet the unhappy consequence of Chinese aggression toward Taiwan is likely to be renewed support here for the other China: Taiwan.

The Chinese pillaging of Tibet's people and institutions is an instruction to the rest of the world that China can't be trusted. Why is entrusting your venture capital to the Chinese any more safe than entrusting to them your religious freedom?

Hong Kong was recently named as maintaining the world's freest economy, but this distinction cannot survive the fist of Chinese political repression. China likes the Singapore model, which mixes economic freedom and obsessive social control, but it underestimates the bad business nerves a sudden clamp-down would create.

China makes a grave mistake by being an international bully, but the United States makes a bigger mistake because the world expects it not to act like a coward.&lt;